RFD America

In an article in Russia Today Boris Borisov makes a startling assertion. Did five million Americans really starve to death during the Great Depression? He thinks so. Using official U.S. Government statistics, Borisov concludes:

Print media is dead. Powerhouses of traditional publishing are dropping like flies. The presses are silent, gathering the rust of obsolescence at printers across the nation: Domino, Country Living, Home, Cottage Living, House & Garden, Gourmet, Modern Bride, and Cookie have all gone under, and according to most industry experts, that's where they'll stay. Even the largest names in mass media are feeling the squeeze. Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune have all seen staggering drops in advertising revenue in their printed editions. Circulation is down. Advertising is down. So, where is everyone going for information? To the Internet, where advertising is up and so is circulation—and the Government has noticed.

This is a sad day for American family farmers. Today, the House passed Produce Traceability Initiative and House Bill 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 by a vote of 283 to 142. The nanny State will now be able to control every piece of food consumers eat, down to the garlic that was used to make the garlic salt in our cupboards. What's worse, not only will the Government be able to control what we eat, they now have complete control over what farmers grow and who we can sell our products to. The days of farmers markets, CSAs, and market gardens are long gone. Forever lost, thanks to the progressive fascists in Congress, is the ability of rural people to barter between ourselves for goods and services.

A colleague of mine, a fairly liberal fellow, was upset to learn that conservatives were cheering the decision to host the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro. His observation illustrates the problem with the politics of identity and personal branding. Both of these strategies helped to get President Obama elected. It was sheer political and branding genius morphed into a new hybrid of political marketing. The problem is that even the best marketers can't make everyone like their product. There will always be detractors.

We all want to believe we have access to clean, healthy drinking water, but there is a huge difference between clean-looking water and healthy drinking water. No matter where you live, the chances that your drinking water is healthy are slim to none. By some estimates, 40 million people unknowingy drink lead-contaminated water in the United States every day. Rural aquifers are contaminated with chemical fertilizers, herbacides, pesticides, and industry run-off. In fact, it's so bad that the federal government is getting involved. We're really in for it now.

Say what you want about the so-called nuclear option. It works. If the goal is to wipe out resistance without regard for the lives of the resisters, then the nuclear option is more than an efficient means to an end—and far less expensive than lengthy battles with enemies. It was atomic power that stopped the Japanese in 1945, not concern for the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, it is "green" power that that has been unleashed on American farmers, and like the one-two punch delivered to Japan on August 6th and 9th back in 1945, the bomb that has been dropped on Contra Costa County's Central Valley is just the beginning of the devastation.

Jim Massey, editor at The Country Today, has said what no one wants to hear: the conventional dairy industry is close to collapse. Conventional (non-organic) farmers have seen the price for their milk slide to 30-year lows. In an industry where debt is encouraged (and until recently rewarded) bankruptcies and foreclosures are running rampant. Now, one would think that this threat to our Nation's farmers would garner some attention from Washington D.C., but it hasn't. Instead the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection along with a few dairy farmers and rural pundits held a meeting on September 9th to see if they could come up with a plan to save producers in Wisconsin.

It's about time. For years, policy makers in Washington D.C. have been ignoring the rural community and our issues. Oh sure, big government and big agribusiness have always gone hand-in-hand, but when it comes to family farmers and the real rural community, neither government nor agribusiness has done anything to help us, let alone ask us what our opinion is. But times are changing.

Hunger does brutal things to the human body and mind, sapping the strength of both will and reason. A hungry nation can't defend itself against physical attack or ideological invasion. Hunger, therefore, is the most effect weapon in a terrorist's arsenal. Starving the opponent guarantees that they will first turn on each other and then surrender in order to eat. What's more, hunger is an easy weapon to deploy. A simple disease, placed where it can affect the most people, in the food chain, could easily bring a nation to its knees.